3-21-9

A young Cape Town rape victim - forced to testify in open court about being allegedly gang-raped, amongst others by the accused son of the Western Cape head of police, had to endure loud laughter from three accused men and supporters in the courtroom.

The unnamed 18-year-old girl described in Khayelitsha regional court how she was allegedly raped by Lwazi Mzito (19), (a son of influential police commander Mzwandile Petros) and the other two accused, Jabu Duluxolo (27) of Langa and Lubabalo Fongoqa (19) of Khayelitsha township near Cape Town, South Africa. (http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/269462)

South Africa - Rape Capitol Of The World

South Africa has the highest level of child-rapes in the world. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/268980

Every 26 seconds, a female is raped in South Africa. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/268602

And the South African police are increasingly 'feral and dangerous', often turning criminal themselves. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/268324

It's thus also very rare to see rapists arrested and convicted in South Africa. Only if the victims themselves stand up and fight for their rights, do the police arrest the rapists. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/269308

Gang-rapes in townships are particularly vicious, with gangs of youths 'jackrolling' through the streets looking for young rape victims.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/264956

Also rape has become so routine during crimes such as robberies and car-hijackings, that it's becoming unusual when murdered female victims were not raped.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/268359

All three of the accused men have denied that they had ever participated in the alleged rape by six men on April 5 and 6 last year, when at the age of 17, this girl said she was 'abducted under false pretences' by Mzito, according to her testimony, and then held captive for an entire night in two township shacks, where she was raped by six different men including Mzito. The other three suspects are still being sought.

Shortly before the young girl 's scheduled testimony, state prosecutor Alfred Isaacs had asked that she be heard behind closed doors. However regional magistrate Robert Matshikwe ruled that this 'wasn't necessary', noting that she could testify via closed-circuit camera. However Mzito's legal councel adv. Sakkie Maartens also didn't like this idea - demanding that the girl be heard in open court.

She then was forced to face the three accused men -- and throughout her testimony, was forced to endure loud laughter which frequently burst forth from the accused men and their family and friends in the public gallery. It wasn't reported whether magistrate Matshikwe ordered silence in the court during the girl's testimony.

Journalist Rozanne Els of Beeld newspaper, who reported the girl's ordeal this week, writes that she was 'shaking visibly' during her testimony, which she had to interrupt frequently because of the loud gales of laughter from the public gallery and the three accused men.

She nevertheless persevered, Els said -- testifying how she and a group of girlfriends were approached in her Khayelitsha street on 5 April last year by a man known as 'Fifty Cent", who insisted rather firmly 'that she had to go home with him'. She said Ene Ntulo, the son of the Western Cape's head of police, then stepped in and offered to 'hide her in his house to prevent her from being gang-raped'.

Spat On Her And Said He Has AIDS

She believed him - yet when they arrived at his squatter's hut however, he raped her, and afterwards spat on her and told her he was 'HIV-positive', the girl testified.

Then he woke up a friend who was asleep in the hut and ordered him to rape her, too, and Fifty Cent then showed up and took her to a larger hut, where she was raped by another three men - in front of these men's girlfriends, the girl testified.

"I didn't scream, but I wept,' she said. The case continues. http://jv.news24.com/Beeld/Suid-Afrika/0,,3-975_2488086,00.html

www.rense.com/general85/sa.htm